[powercf]

> People that thought the Sun was a perfect sphere would discount things they could directly see with their eyes.

What do you mean by this? The Sun is, to a very good approximation, a perfect sphere. Or as perfect a sphere as one is likely to find in the physical world.

[Retric]

It's one thing to say it's a very good approximation of a sphere. It's another thing to say it's in fact an absolutely perfect sphere.

People had firm belief in the second and discounted evidence to the contrary. Even ignoring that rotation causes a significant distortion (https://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/oblate_sun....) they would not accept https://eclipse2017.nso.edu/coronal-mass-ejections-cme/ as a 'real' thing.

[geezerjay]

> Or as perfect a sphere as one is likely to find in the physical world.

That's precisely the point. One may argue that the sun being a perfect sphere is a fact, but someone else may also point the facy that the surface of the sun shows significant deviations from the perfect sphere, thus the facy being that the sun is not a sphere.

The thing is, they wouldn't be discussing facts but instead personal opinions based on observations. Thus both would be right and wrong while the facts were still the same.